STRIKE!

I remember when I was in Primary 7 at St Aloysius (not the posh one but the one in Springburn) the boy up the stairs from me was in one of the other P7 classes at my school. (For some reason there seemed to be a hell of a lot more people at school back in the 70s!). His cousin was at St Augustine's Secondary in Milton and one weekend we couldn't wait to quiz him about a story that had been in the papers. I don't remember all the details, but a teacher in the school had lost his job. He was very popular and all the pupils went on strike, refusing to even go inside the school building until he was reinstated. I can't recall if he was or not.

Anyway, my pal was really taken with the idea of a strike and was keen to do it at our school. I tried to make him understand that there had to be a reason to go on strike but he was adamant. He got everybody in his class fired up as well on the Monday and word went round the school. Blood-curdling threats of vengeance were made to discourage any blabbing to the teachers. The next day was a Holiday of Obligation, which he and his classmates saw as an ideal opportunity. On the way back to school from St Aloysius Church we would be passing a swing-park on the corner of Springburn Road and Elmvale Street. He and the others were going to sit on the wall, against the railings, raise a clenched fist and shout, "Strike!" That would be the signal for the rest of us to join in and sit on the wall as well.

Of course, the next morning, on the way back from mass, things didn't go according to plan. Only four of them sat on the wall, fists in the air, and yelled their call to arms. The rest of us just stayed in our lines, walked past and pretended we knew nothing about it. The four were marched down to the Heidie's office as soon as we got to the school and their constant blowing on their hands at playtime showed what the Heidie had thought of their attempt at industrial action!

I was reminded of this when I read in the Daily Record that the Bisto Board has again assured the Sons of Struth that they won't sell or lease Ibrox. How many times is that now? Which begs the question, what was the point of the latest march? Indeed, what is the point of the Sons of Struth or the Union of Fans at all? Their stupid idea of the Bisto Board handing over the deeds was never going to happen and assurances is the best they're going to get. Since the board has told them time and again that Ibrox will not be sold or leased then the whole happy band and its marches makes as much sense as those lads at St Aloysius with their strike!

Meanwhile, Keith Jackson is not a happy bunny. He left for work in his car only to discover that there's a big event taking place in Glasgow and he was stuck in traffic jams. He makes the excuse that he's 'been away' but with the amount of build-up his paper gave to these Games surely he must have been aware that some disruption was inevitable? Anyway, he's full of spite about it and questions the point of what he calls 'a C-list event'. Maybe we should take Jackson at his word and scrap all C-list events, and even the B-list ones. Let's just have a Premiership and get rid of all the dross in the also-ran leagues. I wonder how Jackson would go for that idea!

And, naturally, he's got to have a wee dig at Celtic. His headline says, 'Glasgow's 2014 bash could cost Celtic their invite to Champions League'. This, of course, got some of The Peeppul excited. Was somebody in the smsm finally going to take notice of their 'state aid' shite and publish all the stuff vomited forth on Football Tax Havens? Sadly for them, it was just Jackson trying to make out that Celtic will get gubbed because they have to play their next home tie at Murrayfield. Yes, because the last one was such a disaster, eh, Keith? One poor whatever-the-singular-of-Peeppul-is obviously couldn't manage the big words in the article and just relied on the headline. He said, "Ha ha, so their collusion (corruption) with the GCC could come back to haunt them. Karma, what a (B)itch!" You almost feel sorry for somebody like that. Almost.

There's one particular clown that always posts on stories about Bisto, Celtic and the Referendum. He calls himself John Johnston and is one of those strange, McMurdoesque creatures that still believes all the Nineteenth-Century propaganda against the Catholic Church. He tried to tell me that 'Pontifex Maximus' (or, as he calls it, 'pontifaxmaxius') translates as 'ruler of the world'. How he reached this conclusion he couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me. His favourite phrase concerning the Referendum is 'Scots don't vote for a pig in a poke.' This makes me laugh since wasn't that exactly what he and his ilk wanted all the SPL clubs to do with Charles Green's new team?

I'm beginning to suspect that there's something funny going on over at McMurdo's website. It looks as if he's not posting anything and neither are his disciples. I think he's managed to get his site running so that you can only read it while wearing orange-tinted specs. That way we normal people won't be able to laugh at him anymore!

I actually got somebody commenting on my last post. (Yay!) He was an intelligent (well, he must be if he reads this blog) individual by the name of K Mav. We had a bit of a conversation about religious teaching in schools, which is compulsory in all Scottish schools at present. To be honest, I swither about this all the time. It's good to instil a code of moral ethics in children and, in the main, this is what religious education tends to be about. I think, though, as far as God and religion goes, the churches themselves are going to have to buck up their ideas. Ministers and priests have got too used to preaching to the converted, the old biddies that turn up to church every Sunday. When they're faced with a class of disbelieving ten-year-olds they tend to be way out of their depth.

In one of my P6 classes all the children, save one, professed not to believe in God. We had a great discussion about it and they had solid reasons for their disbelief, like the death of a baby brother, a little sister having Down Syndrome etc. I invited the local C of S minister in to answer  their questions and they were quite excited about it. Imagine their disappointment, and mine, when she came in and just prattled on about things in the Bible. I felt like screaming, "But they don't fucking well believe in the Bible!" The whole thing was a waste of time as far as I was concerned. The children's feelings were summed up by one girl. One of the boys had been at learning support and arrived back just as the minister was leaving. "Aw naw!" he said, "Ah missed it!" The girl embarrassed me, but spoke the truth, when she yelled out, "It's awright, ye didnae miss much!"

One of the problems with RE in schools is that most teachers haven't the first idea and rely on material provided by the council. (The C of S, and others, don't produce any school material so the ND schools all use the Catholic stuff!) Maybe RE should be more about investigation and discussion. Part of the 5-14 RE curriculum was called, 'Personal Search' and perhaps this is what they should concentrate on. The children could find out about different religions, as they do at present, and have discussions about moral codes etc. Local religious leaders could come in and argue their case; although they'd have to do a lot better than that minister I had in my class!

As to all the furore about Catholic schools, they're going to disappear soon enough. These days parents send their children to the nearest school no matter what kind it is. While teaching in ND schools I had more than a few Catholics in my class, while there are many non-Catholics attending Catholic schools. Twenty years ago, while I was still allowed to work in Catholic schools, I was in one in Glasgow. The parish priest, an old Irishman, came in to speak to the P2s, since it was getting near time for First Communions. He left with a face like thunder when he discovered that there was not one Catholic in the P2 class! That's the way things have been heading for ages and I can see Catholic schools fading away in my lifetime. Rather than let this happen, however, the bigots want them done away with now, just so they can claim some pathetic sort of victory!

Finally, I see the Daily Record is all concerned because about a quarter of the Scottish population that is eligible to vote hasn't even bothered to register. Some of the folk the DR interviewed have never registered in their lives and hum and haw about doing it now. I wonder if the Westminster Government will try to pull the same fast one they did in 1979!

"And the young Peeppul ask me, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question!"